Unkindled Ash
by CrawlingInChaos
Summary: Upon waking up in a grey valley with fragmented memory, a young woman fights her way through a dying kingdom to fulfil a prophecy she barely understands.
1. The Cemetery of Ash

She flickers her eyes open to a stiff blackness, and a gentle, even weight spread across her body. She opens her mouth to fill her long-empty lungs, but instead finds herself gagged by a sudden torrent of dry ashes, forcing itself up her nose and pushing out ragged, choked coughs. She panics and flails, pushing against the layer of white, sooty grains in a desperate attempt to break herself free. The weight loosens around the end of her right hand, and she uses the leverage to force it up and above ground. Her shoulders become easier to move next, and she uses her free hand to scrape and dig at the ashen dirt atop her face, bare fingers raking into the loose grey sand until she can snatch a harsh, sudden breath. She blinks the light grains out of her eyes and looks up at the dull, grey canopy of clouds above her, pumping air in and out of her chest until she's capable of straight thought once more. With a strong, hard lurch, she yanks her torso up and out of the ashen bed, and wiggles her feet and legs to get them free as well.

She casts her eyes about the lifeless, ash-coated valley around her before hauling herself up onto her feet, leaning against the old dead tree she had been buried under. She takes a shaky step forward, slowly building her confidence before advancing down a short slope, past a series of gravestones and towards an old, broken stone basin. She looks over the figure sprawled out against it; an old knight, the gaps in its armour ripped and stained with dried, ancient blood. She looks between the abraised, battered steel and the old rags hanging off of her, making a move to start stripping the corpse clean for her own use. Her eyes are drawn, however to something hanging from its belt; a dull flask of mottled, emerald glass, its surface worn and aged almost beyond use. She crouches, unhooking it from the knight's armour and feeling it over, taking in a feeling of warmth from it, a feeling of treasury and dependence. A few flashes of memory come back to her recently-woken and addled mind: the image of a kindly old woman tucking a similar flask into her hands, although it was much cleaner than the one she now held; it was reflective, without a scratch, and filled to its brim with warm, fiery liquid. Other flashes slowly come back to her as she stands and places the flask on the edge of the broken basin. She remembers a simple farm, in a green and meadowed land, and being dragged away from it by some kind of duty. She remembers a great flame, and being forced to venture toward it by her lord, perhaps as some kind of sacrifice. She can't put names to faces, or places to times, and she sighs at her own disorientation.

She's knocked from her concentration by a sudden flurry of activity; a hideous squawk, barely human, brings her attention behind her, and she turns to face it just as a mass of white flesh and black cloth barrels into her, knocking her hard against the basin's edge. She sinks to the floor, on top of the knight's corpse, and glances up at the man standing before her, if it could even be called a man. Its skin was taut and deathly pale, and its limbs were fragile, thin and treelike. Its mouth hung open, emitting a beastly mixture of groans and shrieks, and its eyes were dull and lifeless, the sockets sunken and hollow. Hollow. That word sticks out in her memory, and she promises herself she'll remember why just as soon as this thing stops assaulting her. Her adrenaline overtakes fear, and she whips her head to the side just as the thin creature stabs down with what looks like the bottom third of an old broken sword. Her hand scrambles around in the grey dirt for something to fight back with, and it closes around something comfortable and oval. Her eyes flicker to it; the dead knight's sword, ornate but seemingly practical and definitely in better shape than her aggressor's. She adjusts her grip, her fingers shifting into familiar and instinctual positions as she kicks her bare foot out against an exposed knee, knocking the treelike monster off balance and giving her an opening. She struggles to her feet, bringing the knight's longsword high into the air and bringing her other hand up to its hilt before bringing it down onto her opponent's shoulder, the blade's still-sharp edge cutting into the paperlike skin and sinew with a satisfying wet thunk. The creature lets out a harsh, piercing shriek, craning its neck over to refocus its dead eyes on her. She doesn't give it a moment, taking a hand away from her sword's hilt to crack her knuckles into its brittle nose before reassuming her two-handed grip, pushing with her shoulder and pulling with her wrists and arms to split her way through the rest of the thin beast's feeble skin and bone. Her blade comes free, smearing gloopy, half-dried blood a few shades too dark across the two combatants as it cuts the now-loser from shoulder to hip. She lets it fall away, dropping the sword and wiping the blood from her eyes as she tries to figure out just how she had just survived, and why it had been so easily.

Two little snapshots rear themselves inside her head; one of training alongside knights in a courtyard, clad in similar armour to the corpse she'd been planning to loot, and one of a sturdy white-haired man, lecturing her about the pestilence of the undead hollows. A hollow, an immortal creature that has long since lost its memory and sanity, wasting away into little more than an unbreathing husk. That was what that thing was. As for how she'd dispatched it, she'd clearly had some military training. She shakes her thoughts away, before turning back to the armoured corpse. She begins to strip it of its aforementioned gear, spending several minutes unbuckling plates and belts, and then re-strapping them onto her own body. Now properly armoured, with a pair of thick greaves, heavy pauldrons, a steel gauntlet, and a heavy chainmail vest and coat, she picks up the mottled green flask and hooks it onto her belt, as well as a series of pouches and little bags, her sword's scabbard, and another, unfamiliar flask, similarly shaped but made of blue glass and covered with occasional patches of little crystals. Using a small length of cord from one of the pouches, she ties back most of her dull, golden, shoulder-length locks and slides the knight's helmet over her head, bringing the visor down to comfortably protect her face. Now fully clothed and armoured and no longer at as much of a risk of being mauled by hollows, she perches herself on the edge of the basin. Collecting what little of her memories she has together, she ponders her next move. She grew up on a farm, but was taken away from it by some kind of royal decree. She'd trained with knights as well, and had been tutored by the church. She'd also died, clearly, signified by the fact that she'd been buried here in the first place. But why has she been resurrected, and by who? She certainly doesn't feel undead or hollowed in any way, and none of the symptoms were presenting themselves to her. She casts her eyes away from where she'd woken up, and out towards the exit of the cave-like cemetery valley. She has little memory, no money or food, and not even her own name.

But just staying in the cemetery won't change that.


	2. The Ashen Judge

It's not long before she's reached the narrow stone hallway separating the dull grey valley she woke up in from the pale yellow skyline, the sun's glare preventing her from getting a clear view of what lays beyond. She navigates past a few more white-skinned hollows to get there, sneaking past their dulled and ancient senses when she can, and applying the strong two-handed swordplay she'd begun to remember when necessary. Pulling her blade from the thin stomach of a hollow's corpse, she takes the final steps out onto a narrow ledge. The blurred afterimage of the sun bursting through the clouds above the horizon blinds her for a moment, but she blinks through it. She's rewarded with a breathtaking view, of snow-dusted mountaintops in the far distance, a vast chasm-like expanse of low hills seperating them from the ledge she's standing on. A castle wall towers over her immediate right, perhaps it's where the dead in the cemetery came from. Her left offers more, however, as she's greeted by a view of a close-by chapel-like structure, a low and old building graced with a pair of crumbling towers at its rear. She inches along the five-foot-wide ledge of crumbling rock, making her way towards it in hope of finding other sane folk. The ledge eventually opens out into a wider platform, leading down into what can only be described as a pair of natural corridors, carved out of two walls of roofless stone. She takes a few tentative steps down into them, before jumping aside at the sudden scream of a charging hollow. Having gotten used to their animalistic, tactless fighting, she simply catches its broken blade in her own, parrying it to the side before drawing her sword across its throat. As she lowers her blade and kicks the hollow lightly to make sure it's still dead, she notices something strange. A dull light and a quiet whispering sound is emnating from the corpse, a sprite that slowly filters out from the body and into her own chest, giving her a light feeling of elation and strength. She'd noticed something similar when cutting her brainless opponents down before, but she'd simply put it down to panic and a lack of her own senses, due to her recent revival. Perhaps she'd ask any sensible inhabitants of the chapel ahead what this strange effect was. Shaking her head, she casts the thought aside for now and ventures down through the corridor to her right.

She's greeted by a pair of resting hollows, one that she catches by surprise with a downwards thrust and another that takes a swing at her; a high swing that she ducks under and guts her attacker in its panic. The corridor leads opens out into another ledge, one that crossroads into the left and right. She hugs the left wall, backing up against it to dodge the sudden thrust of a spear-wielding hollow. She sheathes her sword, grabbing the spear just below its point and yanking it out of her attacker's hands. She swings it upward, catching the hollow in the jaw with the spear's handle, before twirling it around to a normal grip and plunging it into the zombie's chest. She leaves the wooden pole protruding from its corpse, stopping only to pick up the flimsy wooden shield it had been carrying in its offhand. The small ledge soon opens out into another clearing, smaller than before, but with once-polished stone flooring and a large grey brick wall along one side. An open doorway sits in it, but she's drawn away before she can properly look past it by a small wooden projectile whistling past her head. Another of the pale horde she's been cutting through sits between her and the doorway, clicking another bolt into its ramshackle crossbow. Shield up, she charges it, two more bolts clumsily missing her before she reaches their shooter. She bashes the crossbow out of the hollow's hands with her shield, drawing her sword back and slinging a powerful cut across its abdomen. Split nearly in half, the beast falls, and she steps over it and into the doorway ahead. She's met by a downward staircase leading into a large clearing of mud and stone brick, a large grey suit of armour kneeling at its centre. She advances towards it, eager to both get a closer look and reach the chapel just past it. Upon a much closer inspection, the suit of armour was much taller than her; standing at just under eight feet, clad in grey stone-like metal and kneeling next to an enormous iron glaive. A small black root-like growth sprouts from its shoulder, but her attention is drawn away from that quickly by the contents of its chest. A hole in its breastplate accomodates a large sword-like object with a spiralled blade and a four-armed, downward-facing crossguard. She sets her shield down at her feet, and places both hands on the large blade's hilt. With a strong yank, it becomes somewhat loose. She begins to pull slowly and free the blade, but a groan and a shift from the armour draws her attention away from it. Its head slowly tilts upwards, its shadow-shrouded eyes looking into her visor as a deep, powerful voice booms out from it.

"Unkindled one, failure to the First Flame, do you accept the challenge before you?" It speaks in a monotone, but most certainly holds a sense of power and authority. She takes a second before answering.  
"Yes. I do." She says, her long-unused vocal chords choking and cracking slightly.  
"Very well. State your name, unkindled one, and wrench the coiled sword from me." The armour replies, turning its head back towards the floor. She pauses, not sure how to respond given that her name still eludes her.  
"I... I.. Uh... Aiya. My name is Aiya." She stutters out, hoping that a simple placeholder will suffice. With a hard pull, the coiled sword comes free, clattering to the floor at her feet. She kneels to pick up her shield as the armour stands, placing a hand on its enormous glaive and wrenching it from the floor. "Aiya, unkindled one clad in the armour of Astora, conquer the Ashen Judge Gundyr and prove your worth." It murmurs, holding the massive polearm behind itself and lowering itself into a laid-back but certainly offensive stance.

Unsheathing her sword and raising her shield, she pushes a heavy breath out through her visor as the Ashen Judge charges.


	3. Iudex Gundyr

Despite it's enormous size, the Ashen Judge swings its gargantuan weapon with a speed far greater than the wasting hollows Aiya has been getting used to. She barely recieves an opening to fight back, sidestepping and ducking under the ceaseless swipes and thrusts of the Judge's glaive. When her heavy armour drains too much of her stamina for her to leap out of the way, she deflects the lighter hits with her shield, but its flimsiness creaks and cracks under the Judge's boulder-crushing strikes. She eventually can't keep up, and a heavy sideswipe slams into her ribs. Her breastplate soaks up most of the damage, but the leftover energy sends an agonising crack into her side, and launches her several feet across the uneven stone floor. She tumbles along the ground for a couple of metres before pulling herself into a stable roll, coming up onto one knee and stabilising herself with the point of her sword. Upon trying to stand up, a harsh pain stabs into her side, and she realises that her armour hadn't done much to protect her at all. The Judge slowly turns to her new position, and lowers itself with its glaive under its arm, in a charging stance. Her hand instinctively moves to the emerald flask on her hip, but she's not sure why. Besides flashes of being given it, she still can't remember anything about it or the golden liquid it holds. She internally shrugs and decides that, unless its some kind of flammable weapon, it wouldn't hurt to find out sooner rather than later. Frantically, she drops her sword and shield and takes the flask from her belt. She uncorks it and throws her visor up, swallowing a mouthful of the warm, fizzing liquid just as the Judge starts charging.

The second the strange elixir flows down her throat, her ribs click back into place and her muscles tighten with a surge of strength. Scrambling, she swipes her arms back up from the floor and holds her shield out just as the Judge's glaive connects. She pushes her shield-bearing arm to the side with renewed, almost inhuman force; the flimsy, rotting wood shatters under the impact with the massive swordspear, but the healing liquid persists and prevents the damage from being translated into her arm. The Judge is thrown off balance by the sudden resistance, and Aiya takes the chance to counter-attack. Placing both hands on the hilt of her sword, she slams the blade into a gap in the Judge's armour. It shouts in pain, falling back as she presses her sword deeper and slowly twists it, inky black hollow's blood dripping and spilling out onto the cold steel. Stepping down on the knee of the staggering guardian, she half jumps, half backsteps and yanks her weapon free, stumbling a couple of feet back and catching her breath as the Judge falls face down. Whatever that glowing liquid is, she'll definitely need to keep her flask topped up in case of emergencies. After a couple of seconds she turns back to the centre of the clearing, where she'd left the coiled sword, and heads over to retrieve it. Perhaps it would be important once she knew exactly for what she'd be proving her worth by killing the Judge. She sheathes her sword, kneels and wraps her previously shieldbearing hand around the coiled sword's warped hilt, pulling it up and balancing the large blade on her shoulder. As she starts making her way towards the large wooden doors at the stone arena's second exit, a dull groaning behind her gets her attention, and she spins around just as the Ashen Judge slowly pulls itself up onto one knee; the inky, black, rootlike growth in its shoulder surging out and starting to grow around its chest and bicep. Letting out a sigh of frustration, Aiya reaches up with her empty right hand and flips her visor back down, mumbling under her breath. "I suppose that would be too easy, wouldn't it?"

Her question falls on death ears, as the bellowing yet sophisticated voice of the Ashen Judge is replaced with an animalistic screech, the black roots stopping after they cover the space between the judge's entire left arm and its head. Aiya adjusts her grip on the coiled sword, placing her dominant right hand at the top of its grip and holding the unorthodox weapon like a greatsword, with her left hand wrapped around its hollow, ring-shaped pommel. With a burst of oily liquid, the roots covering the judge's upper body split open, freeing a writhing, muscular black mass which coats an enormous snakelike head and a huge clawed appendage. Springing off of its powerful new arm, the judge screeches and directs one of its charging thrusts at Aiya, who is forced to dive to the ground to avoid the sudden attack. Clambering back to her feet, she rushes into close quarters, underneath the reach of its twelve-foot claw and accessing the delicate union between the judge's hollowed, armour-plated body and the new, corrupted growth. She uses the coiled sword's great weight to bash the judge's glaive aside, before letting her right hand slip off the greatsword's hilt and yanking her longsword from its scabbard, transferring the momentum of its drawing into a strong slash, easily tearing through the tender black fibres holding the judge to its beastly expansion. Wincing as the judge's black ichor splashes against her visor, she backs off, leaping into a roll to get away from her opponent's sudden, panicked, defensive slashes. Repeating this tactic of defending herself with the coiled sword, creating an opening and then rushing in close to attack with her longsword, she manages to wittle away at the Ashen Judge's vicious, animalistic defenses. During one rush, however, the Judge catches her off guard by feigning an easily parryable glaive attack, but instead batting her aside with its enormous corrupted fist. The barbed claws dig into the gaps in her armour, piercing her skin and tearing at her flesh. She lets out a scream as she's flung against the arena wall, clattering to the ground like a toy soldier. Scrambling for her flask, she raises her visor, drops her weapons and empties the rest of the golden elixir into her mouth, feeling her split sides and gushing wounds slowly close and painlessly numb. Panting, she rearms herself and clambers to her feet, nodding her head violently to swing her visor down; the Ashen Judge rears its terrifying head, opening its ten-foot mouth and screaming in her face. The soothing elixir calms her nerves, and she sees this as her chance to defeat the monsterous gatekeeper. Rearing the coiled sword behind her head, she throws it like a javelin into the Judge's maw. Despite its lack of a cutting edge, the sword has a perfectly sharp tip, and embeds itself into the abhorrent thing's throat with a wet, satisfying thunk. It staggers, letting out another ear-splitting shriek, and Aiya unsheathes her longsword, sprinting toward the Judge and following the coiled sword into its throat. Slamming the tip of her sword into the horrible, writhing pink tongue beneath her, she uses the couple of steps of room she has to put as much force as she can into a tremendous, splitting pull, yanking her sword along the bottom of the Judge's jaw and freeing it in the same motion. Not taking a moment to retch or splutter at the nauseating, rotten scent around her, thanks to her potion-reinforced will, she twirls her sword around and thrusts the tip cleanly and forcefully up into the roof of the Judge's mouth, extracting another horrendous scream from the beast and feeling the body beneath her starting to wobble and lose balance.

Grabbing at the hilt of the coiled sword, Aiya leaps free of the falling Judge, using gravity to twist the strange greatsword out with her. She clatters to the ground with enough force to knock the wind out of her lungs, the gold potion's effects having worn off over the past few seconds. She doesn't sit up, laying on her back and catching her breath for a few seconds, but she can see the black mass that had grown out of the Ashen Judge slowly shrink away and dissipate. She feels a sudden elation, similar to that gained by draining the white energy from the hollows she'd killed prior, but much more fulfilling and dense. Taking a couple more seconds to compose herself, she sits up, casting her eyes to the now-still corpse of the Ashen Judge. She waits for about a minute or so before standing, just to make sure that the stubborn gatekeeper wouldn't get back up again. Regaining her composure, she places her swords into ther respective positions, longsword at her hip and coiled sword rested on her shoulder, and casts her eyes up to the chapel, now barely a hundred metres away.


End file.
